


you don't have to answer, leave them hangin' on the line

by Quilly



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Asexual Relationship, Body Worship, Fat Shaming, Female-Presenting Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Naked Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27604618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quilly/pseuds/Quilly
Summary: An angel, a demon, a golden afternoon, and breaking the ice on insecurity.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 80





	you don't have to answer, leave them hangin' on the line

**Author's Note:**

> This is 1000% an excuse to write body worship of a small-breasted chubby feminine figure and I'm not sorry about it at all.
> 
> Female-presenting Aziraphale using he/him pronouns throughout and intended to be read as asexual but I'm not the boss of you, curate your own reading experience :P

“Angel!” Crowley called as he stepped into the bookshop, one fine autumn afternoon well after Armageddon’t. He had a box of petit-fours under one arm and a bouquet of long-stemmed blushing roses under the other and was just working up to vanishing the roses, they were too much, weren’t they, when the atmosphere of the bookshop finally hit him. The bookshop was often quiet. A quiet bookshop was a happy bookshop. A silent bookshop, on the other hand, was foreboding. No soft humming among the shelves, no clinks of teacups and hot cocoa mugs, no rustling of paper or reserved exclamations of delight. Just cold, stark, silent bookshelves, looming like sentinels and only allowing Crowley to pass by dint of his extended stays in the past. Crowley gulped despite himself.

“Angel!” he called again. “Aziraphale!”

No angel in the back room. No angel in the shelves. No angel at his desk. Was he out?

There was a creak of wood, and the door to the flat that Crowley had never seen unaccompanied slowly swung open as if by ghostly invitation. Crowley set the roses and the pastry box aside and ascended the stairs, doing his best to keep a level head, but nerves ate away at him. Why didn’t Aziraphale answer? Was he sick? Was he hurt? Was he even here, and Crowley was about to march into a trap?

The flat carried on the pastiche of the bookshop, dusty and cozy and homey, packed to the gills with bits and bobs and books, and Crowley took a surreptitious sniff. No Heavenly influence. No Hellish, either. Just a singular angel, sitting alone in a room with a door ajar.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley said, more gently, and heard a thin “here” in response. Crowley followed both his nose and the voice, and stepped into a room glowing softly golden in the afternoon light. He had a moment to appreciate the Victorian furnishings before it registered whom, exactly, was sitting in the chair in front of the mirror, and in what state of undress, before Crowley’s brain took up a chorus it hadn’t for millennia now— _gloria, gloria_ —

Crowley spun around, his cheeks on fire, and said, in a high, strangled voice, “I’m s—didn’t realize you were—I’ll just go, it’s—”

“I don’t mind, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, barely a whisper, “but if you don’t wish to see me, I understand.”

“Don’t wish to—hang on,” Crowley said, and had to stop to work moisture back into his mouth. “Hang on. What?”

Crowley heard Aziraphale shift, and had to close his eyes to pray to—Someone, anyway—for the will to keep his knees from giving out before turning back around, and taking in what he was really looking at. That was Aziraphale sitting in front of the mirror, alright, and very nearly stark naked, which was unusual as of the last thousand years or so, but Crowley forced his eyes away from the expanses of exposed skin up to the face he knew and loved so well, to take in the soft drip of tears off the upturned nose, the red rimming the impossible eyes. Twin impulses roared to life, twisting together—the urge to comfort Aziraphale, however best he needed it, and the immediate desire to find whoever had made him cry and end them, messily and publicly. Crowley compromised by swallowing hard and attempting to ask what was going on. He managed a few disconnected syllables.

Aziraphale was looking at him now, eyes big and sad and soft as the rest of him. Crowley mentally slapped himself, then physically shook his head and took three hesitant steps into the room.

“Why are you crying?” Crowley finally managed to ask.

“Am I?” Aziraphale said, and reached up to dab under an eye. “Oh. I suppose I am.” Aziraphale drew his arms around himself and turned back to the mirror. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Crowley managed to walk behind Aziraphale’s chair, up to the mirror, and saw that what Aziraphale seemed fixated on was the swell of stomach under his arms, which Crowley couldn’t look at too closely without coming very close to fainting. He waited, hoping proximity would get him used to the idea of being this close to his angel’s naked body without any misfires from his own. It didn’t seem to be working. But Aziraphale did seem to be working himself up to speak, which was a plus.

“I thought I might try on a…fairer corporation,” Aziraphale said, squeezing his arms in a way that pushed up his chest and made it obvious there were very different fat deposits sitting there than usually occupied the space. _Breasts_ , Crowley’s brain supplied helpfully. Hardly any bigger than the usual fat deposits, really. And there, his waist nipped in a bit more than usual, the flare of his hips a bit more dramatic. No Effort, which was standard, but the delicate, filmy underthings Aziraphale was wearing over his bottom were, as far as Crowley knew, not standard (though that hardly meant anything, Crowley hadn’t given the angel’s underthings much thought other than how very much Crowley would like to take him out of them to snuggle, skin to skin. He was now rethinking that course of action, when faced with gauzy golden underthings that did wonderful things for his skin tone). All signifiers of a heteronormative feminine figure, so far as Crowley was aware.

“How…do you like it?” Crowley croaked, then cleared his throat. “Looks nice on you.”

Aziraphale snorted. Crowley didn’t care much for that at all. “You wear one so beautifully, dear boy. I thought I might try it, given…everything. No home office to report back to and all. I thought it was very interesting at first, how differently clothes have to lay to accommodate. Very exciting.”

Crowley could feel the “but” coming and very carefully placed his hands on the back of the chair for support, counterintuitively putting his hands very, very close to Aziraphale’s round shoulders and making his knees knock together.

“There were…comments,” Aziraphale said. “When I shooed out a customer. Ever so rude, you know, he was after my illuminated Milton, treated it very poorly for a book its age and worth. He began trying to wheedle the price down by flirting with me, then when I wouldn’t budge, said some…very unkind things.” Aziraphale dashed a hand over his eyes. “I’m used to it, of course I am, though perhaps it hit a little harder when…”

“When?” Crowley prompted, gently, gently, not storming out to find the prick and shove a newer copy of illuminated Milton where the sun didn’t shine.

“Gabriel also called it a gut,” Aziraphale said. There was splintering wood under Crowley’s newly-manifested claws, which he fought back with difficulty. Aziraphale pouted at him, which at the very least was something other than blank misery and Crowley would take it. “I say, dear boy, take care, this chair’s an antique.”

“Sorry,” Crowley growled, and smoothed the wood out under his stubbornly normal fingers.

“Anyway,” Aziraphale sighed, and sank back into the chair further, trapping Crowley’s hands against the chair, and Crowley did his very, very best to not discorporate, glad for his sunglasses to hide how his eyes were likely popping out of his skull. “He also called me dowdy and dull and while I’m usually not one to let ignorance get the best of me, it was the…the similarity to language my superiors used to use that really got me. I’ll be alright, Crowley, really I will. I’ll just change back—”

“No,” Crowley growled, then coughed when Aziraphale turned around to look up at him, startled. “I mean. I mean, if you want to, s’not really my business, but don’t—don’t let some human ruin your fun.”

“It’s alright, Crowley, I’m really not suited for it, my figure in any presentation hasn’t been exactly fashionable for a long while,” Aziraphale said, though he didn’t move. Crowley was certain that the brush of warm angelic skin against his knuckles was going to incinerate him and he would die happy about it.

“S’beautiful,” Crowley managed through vocal chords intent on strangling him.

The word hung between them, and though part of Crowley wanted to snatch it back, to stuff the word so far down his throat it got lost in the abyss of his needless stomach, the rest of him bopped himself on the head and said, you’ve been waiting for your chance, moron, don’t mess it up now, just tell Aziraphale how you feel.

 _Calling Gloria,_ his brain tacked on. Not quite the right _gloria_ chorus but it would do, as far as deafening mental background noise went.

Aziraphale had said nothing during this exceedingly long internal struggle of Crowley’s, but hadn’t blinked or moved either, so clearly Crowley was going to have to take charge. He coughed, wished he had wine on hand, and resolved to push through his nerves without. Probably for the best, anyway, no need to get diverted on a tangent about mammals or vintage pop songs.

“May I?” Crowley asked, his voice rougher than intended. “Show you what I mean?”

“If…if you’d like,” Aziraphale said, also sounding rough, almost winded.

Crowley took a deep breath.

“Stand up,” he said, softly, and Aziraphale complied, looking bewildered. “Look in the mirror.”

Aziraphale did so, and his face crumpled some upon looking at his body again, his arms still huddled protectively over his chest. Crowley resolved to leave them be for the moment.

“Start from the ground up,” Crowley said, and dropped to his knees, then encircled Aziraphale’s ankles with his hands. He had to take a moment, that first press of skin to delicate skin, and nearly put his forehead against Aziraphale for balance but thought better of it when he realized where, precisely, his head would have to rest at this angle. He still needed those brain cells, thanks. Even the shape of Aziraphale’s legs were different in this corporation, curvier and differently-proportioned in such a way that made them look…well. He’d get there. “Always liked your feet. Normal feet, ten normal little toes and no unexpected angles or textures. Lovely ankles.” Crowley ran his hands lightly up the outside of the calf, tracing his thumb up the back of Aziraphale’s legs until they hit the divots of the backs of his knees. Aziraphale flinched a little at the touch, but didn’t order him away, so Crowley stayed.

“Knees are bloody adorable,” Crowley growled. “Look at ‘em. Dimpled and round and just…just like little cakes, alright, even when they’re dry and rough. Makes me want to bite them sometimes.”

“Bite my knees?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley pressed his thumbs into the backs of Aziraphale’s knees, feeling the involuntary shiver at the touch—just a twitch, a reflex, but it was Aziraphale and it was a part of Aziraphale Crowley hadn’t expected to ever touch and he needed a moment.

“Great knees,” Crowley mumbled, and really had to steel himself to slide his hands higher. “These, though. Have dreams about these.”

“My—my fat thighs?”

“Wonderful, fat, solid thighs,” Crowley said, and had to sit up on his knees some, to get his arms around them right. His fingers caressed the whole circumference, feeling the further shivers and shudders as his fingers danced across the delicate skin of the inner thighs, just grazing, not paying any special attention. “You know how often I’ve thought of being wrapped in these? Of what would happen if you got them around my head and just—just squeezed? Would crack my skull open like a melon, and I’d be grateful for the opportunity.”

“Crowley, really,” Aziraphale said, though he didn’t move and didn’t seem to be able to say much of anything more. Crowley skimmed his fingers over the stripes of pink and gold decorating the inner arches of Aziraphale’s legs but thought he would get to them in a moment, there were other domains to explore.

He stood, and his hands came up with him, framing Aziraphale’s belly, and Crowley did have to lean his forehead against Aziraphale’s shoulder to breathe for a minute. His heart hurt in his chest, it was going so fast. Aziraphale’s breath hitched, and his arms seized, but he didn’t push Crowley away, so Crowley kept going.

“This,” Crowley said, quietly, almost a whisper into Aziraphale’s ear, “is my favorite thing, because it’s you. This is your choice. No other angel has one of these, they wouldn’t know an indulgence if it bit them on the nose.”

“Angels aren’t supposed to—”

“Hush,” Crowley said, and to his very great surprise, hugged Aziraphale to him. That wonderful belly had so much give, it was so soft—Crowley swallowed down his own startled squeak with difficulty as Aziraphale let one out. “Look at you, so soft and inviting.” He fit his fingers into some of the stretch marks, dragged the skin upwards with them, watching the deep purple of new growths on the underside of the belly fade to pink fade to glistening gold. “And there’s just—so much, I could get lost in you and never come out, if you let me.” He thumbed at the end of a stretch mark that stopped just over Aziraphale’s vestigial belly button, such an absurd thing for an angel to have (or a demon, for that matter, but to be fair Crowley hadn’t had one until he noticed the humans did; maybe Aziraphale was the same). “These are gorgeous.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Aziraphale said, though his breathing indicated he would never dream of telling Crowley to stop. And so Crowley didn’t.

He gently brought his hands up to Aziraphale’s wrists, then stopped.

“Let me?”

Aziraphale nodded, and Crowley dragged Aziraphale’s arms down, letting the breasts free of where Aziraphale had been clamping them against himself, and returned his hands to Aziraphale’s belly, now given proper access to travel upwards to their natural conclusion of holding a handful each of Aziraphale’s flesh. They had stretch marks, too, and perhaps weren’t as pert as other breasts Crowley had observed, but Crowley held them reverently as part of Aziraphale and he sighed into Aziraphale’s shoulder about it. “Not as familiar with the sight of these, but I adore them.”

“You…you do?” Aziraphale gasped as Crowley tightened his grip, ever so slightly. “They’re not—not very big—”

“Don’t have to be,” Crowley said, and gently released them. “They just have to be yours. Whatever you are, I like.”

Aziraphale’s mouth closed with a snap, his eyes big and watery again and his lip trembling. Crowley’s hands enclosed Aziraphale’s shoulders, trailed down his arms, came around his wrists, then ensnared themselves around his fingers, interlocking tightly. Crowley, very bravely, planted a small kiss to one round shoulder and looked in Aziraphale’s eyes in the mirror.

“I like all of you, however you want to be,” Crowley murmured. “However _you_ want. Not however you think other people want you to be.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale mouthed as the tears overflowed from his eyes. “Oh.”

“Don’t even get me started on your face,” Crowley sighed, leaning his head against Aziraphale’s. “We’d be here all night and my legs are tired.”

“I’ve been standing longer than you,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley wasn’t sure how or when it had happened, but Aziraphale was leaning back against him now, all that warm exposed weight against his front, and Crowley, still holding Aziraphale’s hands, hugged him from behind, interlocking their arms, swaying side to side and closing his eyes. This. This was exactly what Heaven had been missing and Hell had never been imaginative enough to promise. Just a demon, with a pretty angel in his arms, nothing more required.

“I’ve got pastries downstairs, if you want them,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale hummed.

“I do want them,” Aziraphale said, though in his warm, contented voice, it sounded like he meant he wanted a great deal more than just cake. “Bring them upstairs?”

“Anything you want,” Crowley said, and went to let Aziraphale’s hands go. He got one detached, but the other was still caught by the time he got far enough away that their held hands actually yanked him back a little, stumbling into Aziraphale’s front this time. Aziraphale caught him and smiled up at him, a coy sort of smile that had Crowley’s throat working to un-strangle itself.

“Just the pastries, if you don’t mind.” Aziraphale plucked at Crowley’s jacket. Crowley blinked, then nodded so hard his glasses slipped down his nose.

As his angel commanded, so Crowley obeyed, he thought as he scooped the petit-fours box back up, feeling breezes in new and interesting places as the idiot smile on his face refused to leave. And the roses. Couldn’t go wrong with roses, not when they matched Aziraphale’s skin so well. Aziraphale would just have to forgive him for it.

**Author's Note:**

> Song referenced is Gloria by Laura Branigan, and I didn't plan on it, I had the "gloria gloria" chorus line written in my head before I sat down to write it and then immediately the song jumped into my head and it felt very goofy and Crowley to me so I went with it XD Something to maybe break the tension a little. Idk. It made me laugh, anyway.
> 
> Quillyfied on Tumblr for more ridiculous content!


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